Ontwerp voor een wandbekleding en schoorsteenmantel 1874 - 1945

Carel Adolph Lion Cachet made this design for a wall covering and mantlepiece, location and date unknown. It's a very detailed design, done in pencil and watercolor with delicate washes and fine lines that give it an ethereal quality, like a memory or a dream. You know, sometimes, designs can feel more intimate than finished works, right? There’s a vulnerability in the way ideas are laid bare. Look at the arabesques, and the gold paint, so thin, barely there, suggesting rather than stating. It’s as if Cachet wants to evoke a feeling, a mood. It’s amazing how the simplicity of the medium allows for such complexity of emotion. The way the fireplace is rendered, for example, all those tiny flicks of the pencil, they are a testament to the artist's care, literally putting care into the design. It reminds me a bit of Aubrey Beardsley, or maybe even some of the Vienna Secession guys. There is a conversation of ideas here, an echo through time. And that’s what art is, isn’t it? An ongoing exchange, always open to interpretation.